1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to gaming chips and more particularly to a circular bar-encoded gaming chip and an apparatus for reading and authenticating the same.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
Slot machines and other types of standard gaming systems have typically been configured to accept standard coins of the country or region in which they operate. As the gaming industry has grown, so has the demand for coins of various denominations which can be accepted by such machines, as well as the demand for different types of coin-operated gaming machines. Accordingly, a number of different types of systems have been developed for accepting and verifying the authenticity of various types of coins, as well as a number of different types of resident specific tokens which may be used in the machines in place of coins. Tokens are generally identical in size and weight to one type of coin, such as the large American Eisenhower dollar, and are assigned various denominations by the issuing establishment, where they may be used as an alternative form of tender. In general, these tokens have no legally recognized value in commerce outside of the issuing establishment.
As the demand for such tokens has risen, and the denomination of such tokens has been increased by the issuers, so has the incidence of counterfeiting. Hence, the design and manufacture of the tokens and the corresponding systems for detecting the authenticity of these tokens have become increasingly more sophisticated. A typical coin comparitor is manufactured by Coin Mechanisms, Inc., of Elmhurst, Ill. Coin Mechanisms' Coin Comparitor Model CC-40 operates by optically comparing an input coin with an appropriate sample of that same type of coin. The optical comparison is basically done by aligning the two coins up with one another and attempting to detect differences in the input coin's physical characteristics. If the input coin is authenticated by this visual comparison, the coin will be accepted by the comparitor. Such a system lacks the ability to determine the denomination of input coins having the same size but different denominations.
Because of the popularity of the dollar-size token, most tokens and gaming checks (referred to as chips from hereon) have been manufactured that size. Since similar sized chips are used by many different gaming establishments, the chips have been marked in different ways to distinguish between issuers. Typically, the markings on the chips have only indicated the issuing establishment and the chip's denomination. In order to further distinguish between chips and aid in the sorting of different chips, CHIPCO International Incorporated developed the Craftmanchip Series gaming chips, which are imprinted with an invisible ultraviolet bar code.
The invisible bar code used by CHIPCO is a linear bar code that is imprinted across the front or back face of the chip and which can be automatically scanned by an ultraviolet bar code scanner. Linear bar codes are also used on a wide variety of items, other than gaming chips, to convey a diverse variety of information. To read a linear bar code imprinted on a chip, it is first necessary to align the chip such that the bar code passes the bar code reader such that the bar code can be successfully read. Aligning a circular or disk-shaped object such as a chip so that the chip may pass by a sensor in a linear direction without angular motion is difficult and greatly restricts the type of reading system which can be used with such chips. In addition, since ultraviolet imprinted chips cannot be visually inspected by players before they accept the chips, the players will be hesitant to accept them because the players have no way of visually determining if they are valid or remain valid after accepting them.
Magnetically encoded identification cards and the like have also been used in the gaming industry, such as the Gaming Data System customer identification cards of Dearborn Computer Company of Nevada in Las Vegas, Nev. Magnetic encoding has not found application in gaming chips because of the sensitivity of the magnetic material and the misuse typically imparted on such chips.